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Hi All,
I am gearing up for my second guitar build, which will have a carved top and I am trying to get some materials and tools together for the build... as ya'll know, the tools one pays to get into lutherie is the #2 reason why most people don't go forward with this crazy schtuff and I continually deplete my funds as I am continuing this new full-contact sport.

I was watching some of Chris's Videos on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/user/verhoevc ) he was making a carved top with a Safe-T-Planer (Bought one, LOVE it!) and he was using the Ibex 90mm Sole Palm Planer (aka Cello planer) as well as a smaller one. I have been pricing these out and they look awesome, but definitely out of my price range (for now) the 90mm one runs around $150 to $165 (plus shipping), so today, I made a decision to try to make my own. I first drew everything in Illustrator, bought a small plane from Harbor Freight (So I could use the blade) as well as some machine screws and nuts (Ya gotta have nuts to do a scary project like this). Ground the blade down on my grinder (kept cooling it on a wet towel) and then grabbed some scrap wood I had on hand as well: some Tamboti for the rear wedge, screw button & sides. Some Magohany for the handle. Gabon Ebony for the thumb wheel and some Black & white Ebony for the nose. After drawing it in illustrator, I cut out the wood pieces (The Safe-T-Planer was GREAT for bringing the smaller pieces to size), glued them up and HOPEFULLY it will work. I think I put too much of a radius on the blade, but I can fix that as I go along. This thing is fairly heavy because of the exotic woods used and it seems to be durable, but I will let you all know how it works on bringing the router lines smooth on the carved top - here's the pics - thanks!







There was some drill hole (or worm hole?) in the Black & white ebony, so I just filled it with wood filler:

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

that is a hella radius for a convex plane! hope it works...
i made a violin top and back this past winter. i was looking at various planes initially, and i was put off by the rip-off prices, so i ended up getting 3 antique U-gouges off of eBay(for less than the price of maybe one new finger plane).
they worked just great for that application! you can remove a whole bunch of wood very quickly with a 1" deep U gouge...
you have to be careful of ruining the temper on cutting blades by overheating....once you do that it can be impossible to get a good edge on one, as the metal becomes so flexible that the "wire" never snaps off when honing. water cooled grindstones are the way to go

Yeah man, that's why I said I needed to get that radius down - didn't notice till I put it together - thanks for the lead!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Okay, I really had to fight the urge to use profanity in this post. I'll just say that I'm quite (%*#^$#&$) impressed. I mean come on, you even made the thumb wheel. You've really been going for it with all your projects, and I have a great deal of respect for you. Keep it up! And I hope that plane actually works...

Hehehe thanx for your kind words Gabby - we can always start a new show called "Pimp My Planer"

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Very nice! I've been meaning to try making some wood planes for a while now. I have one of the 10mm Ibex planes for violin carving, but I think I'd prefer wood anyway, as the metal gets hot enough to burn after a little while of shaving at curly maple with the toothed blade.

The thumb wheel is indeed a nice touch. Ought to give better control of depth setting than the usual style of just pounding the wedge in with a mallet.

Be sure and buy or make some scrapers too, if you don't have them already! One of those gooseneck jobs, and a thin rectangle that can flex to reach concave curves. Planes will get you close, but scrapers are the key to fine-tuning curved surfaces.

I've made this one 15 years ago using a piece of an old european walnut table and a piece of a broken band saw for the blade...

I used the plans inside Irving Sloane's book for creating it and its still working great for carving a top...

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http://hufschmidguitars.com

Hi Dennis!
Thanks for the tips - besides the fact that I was trying to save money, I was also thinking about the comfort of the wood under my hand (this is NOT a Freudian slip!)as opposed to the brass/metal with the sharp corners but I never thought about the heat factor - this is all new territory for me and now ya got me looking at wood scrapers! At least they are in this poor man's budget. Now that I look back on things, I realize all of the better tools I could have purchased as opposed to all the moneys I spent on inlay materials on my first guitar build. It is what it is and slowly, but surely I will build up on the most crucial things first. My guess is that after I use the planer, I can always go to sandpaper (for now). I see that scrapers give you a cleaner finish than sandpaper, so are you saying it's "quicker" to clean up the planer lines left as opposed to sandpaper? If you were on a desert island and only had a planer and several grits of sandpaper, could it be done? Thanks again for posting!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Patrick!
That's AWESOME! I saw your post for breakfast this morning and you made my day brother! So let's look at these cool elements here: Made out of some old furniture - this is right alongside Brian May's guitar - the wood already has a history to it before being reused for something spectacular as this. 15 years of carving guitar tops? That's romantic and nostalgic at the same time! Using an old saw blade? PRICELESS! The only thing missing is maybe a story of you carving the thing out with a sharpened tablespoon - and to top things off, it is truly "Swiss Made" . You are truly an inspiration and I bet that tool is a part of your builds that makes your guitars that much more special. Cool stuff for sure - thanks!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Hey, Virgil, that's a nice little plane. I'm especially impressed with your thumb screw. I wouldn't worry too much about the spoon radius on the bottom. I'd just make more and I'd build a different radius into each.
As you move forward, you'll discover it's nice to have an aggressive plane for hogging out material, then a slightly flatter one for smoothing out ridges left by the first plane. Then a real narrow one for getting into the recurve at the waist, and so on, etc. etc. etc. Years ago, a friend of mine gave me several worn out industrial hack saw blades, and I grind pieces of those into little plane irons, carving knives, small chisels and skews, etc. etc. If you can get a couple of industrial hack saw blades, I think you'll probably have a lifetime supply of edge steel.

Chris!
You must have read my mind! The thought did occur to just buy the blade, but my point was to spend as little as possible to get the job done until I could afford something that would do the job more efficiently. This whole project cost me under $20 and that was my challenge - to make something that can get me by until I can possibly sell a guitar down the road. Right now, I am in "MacGyver Mode" and have an EXTREMELY limited budget, so if that means my planer will take 3 times as long as the ibex and needs to be sharpened after every 3 scrapes, then so be it. There is an old Sicilian proverb because of being poor that was something like "I don't have the money to make a gift, but I do have the time." is quite fitting, since I'm half Sicilian, and I just don't have the funds(yet). Chris, you are truly an inspiration with allot of the things I am doing right now - I even made a vacuum table last week that I saw you had made on your YouTube videos - and I love all of this stuff.... just trying to get by with some "Temporary Ingenuity"..

For hand tools on my shopping list, the Ibex planers are still there(Top of the list... oh yeah, and now scrapers!) Aluminum Radius blocks (I have 2 maple ones for now)... I am also in need of some bigger tools so I can get these things done that I need to build guitars, like a bandsaw (I have a tiny one that chokes on anything thicker than 1/4") a 14' (or larger) planer (I have a 12 1/2" one loaned to me) and a drum sander(already looking at plans to build my own possibly).

My passion for building guitars greatly exceeds the expectations to sell them, but if I am able to sell them, that would just be icing on the cake with the initial moneys going to the equipment I need. If I am unable to sell them, that's fine too, I will play them because I have been playing guitar for over 35 years and I'll never stop playing. I was just making the first guitar on a challenge from my friend Tony, but had no idea that I was going to get into it this much. No turning back now and I look to people like you Chris and others that know allot of the ins and outs of this craft and this has certainly changed my life over the past year - thanks for spending the time to make videos for us "greenhorns". They(and you) spark the imagination and help the path turn a lot more straight.

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Thank you! Awesome! Thanks for the suggestion! I am thinking of making a smaller one and that just may work - I never heard of the "Industrial" type of hacksaw blades, just familiar with the flimsy ones I have used in the past. My wife commented yesterday, saying that it's starting to look like "Santa's Workshop" around here now

I was also thinking about making 2 radii's on opposite ends of the blade - it would just have to be slightly shorter, so not to cut my hand... there would still be plenty of room to fit under the thumbscrew - thanks again!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Sure, sandpaper works too. Better sometimes. But scrapers are usually quicker and easier for big curvy surfaces, and give more control for refining the curves past the initial smoothing out of plane marks. Check Padma's 17" archtop thread for some shots of plane and scraper carving (and making planes much like yours!). One nice thing is the tendency to flatten a surface across the width of the scraper, rather than following over lumps like a finger behind sandpaper. Also, you don't have to buy more paper all the time.

Anyway, you can make scrapers out of just about any piece of spring steel. Really all they are is a flat piece of metal, which you polish the face, true up the edge, and burnish a hook. You can use a screwdriver rather than a fancy burnisher... or even skip the burnishing step and scrape with the bur left from filing the edge. For a carved top guitar, probably a .4mm thick rectangle is all you'll really need. I don't know of any common objects that are made of spring steel that thin, but LMI has them for $5.25, if you have enough stuff to order from them to justify shipping. Alternatively you could make a convex one from an old putty knife or something, which can handle concave curves even if it's made of thicker stock (this would pretty much eliminate the need to buy a gooseneck scraper). Also, a stiffer rectangle is nice to have. Better for working flat surfaces, as it doesn't want to dig in as much as a thin one. Being mainly an acoustic builder, my .8mm rectangle gets by far the most use.

Awesome info Dennis - thanks man! I like the idea of using less sandpaper, (Cheaper in long run) and the evenness they produce....

here's a cool vid on scrapers & sharpening them:

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

haha well I have built a few carved tops in my early days but I mostly was using this tool for carving the arm and belly contours on my instruments...

I have a good exemple here: the good old cave man's way of doing it...

_________________
http://hufschmidguitars.com

Oh YEAH PATRICK!
Great stuff! - it reminds me of the old saying... "Back when we were kids, we walked in 5 miles of snow to get to school!" or back when I was a kid - I had a stick for a toy - and made the BEST of that stick! - In all actuality, the saw is a great idea, for even a reference point for a router!

Today, I went to Harbor Freight (Against colleagues suggestions) and found a HUGE piece of spring steel to make some homemade scrapers out of..... it's actually just a big handsaw and it only costs $5.99 - my guess is that I will be able to make a complete set of scrapers that runs over $50 from most luthier suppliers (ahem).

I then went to Home Depot and purchased a couple of "Buck" brand planer blades for under $3 each and will be able to make a few mini planer blades - I am so into this (Plus it's making great use of time till the dueling dragons return!) Thanks again man and I LOVE your web site & guitars - you are an inspiration!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

in the spirit of that ingenuity, might i suggest a way to improve upon your cheap harbor frieght blade. A little heat treating can go along way with a piece of steel (provided its not mild). I had to make a lot of tools starting out as well. heat that sucker up to about orange heat, quench it in vegetable oil, and temper it at 400-500 degrees in the oven for a while and you could have a blade that will hold a much better edge. not an expert on this stuff, but I have some blacksmithing buddies who help me all my metal working adventures and thats the general process. (they just got done makein swords for the movie Thor!!)

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~shad peters

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petersinstruments/
http://petersinstruments.blogspot.com/
http://petersinstruments.com/

With regard to Patrick's plane, I've got two like that, too--also built from the plans in the same book. They really work. If you've ever watched Robert Benedetto's videos, you'll see him making shavings fly with a maple plane exactly like Patrick's. One corner of the fore sole of the plane is completely worn down from all the hours of shaving Mr. B. has done with it.

Another source of material for irons (for those who like to tinker, like I do) is industrial hack saw blades--the ones about an inch wide and 15-18 inches long. I have a lifetime supply of them, given to me by another tinkerer. I expect you could get them (work out for factory purposes) cheap or free at a factory or metal working shop. Very stout, very hard steel, a bit difficult to sharpen because of their hardness, but wow, when you get everything right, they really cut!
The other Patrick.

Thanks Shad - I have the planes on hold whilst I finish up the dragons, but I like trying things like that and hey, if Thor uses them, they hazzta be badazz right? LOL Also Patrick, thanks I heard the same thing in my other thread - wish I had a hookup around here to get some of them blades, I'll keep looking. I tried Home Depot and they looked at me strange (They tend to do that with poor wannabee luthiers anyways hehehe)

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar